Matt puts gloss on it
Blues boss points to positives
MATT O’CONNOR insists he won’t be banging his head off a wall in frustration during his summer holidays, claiming the harsh lessons of the past three months can only be helpful in ensuring Leinster don’t suffer a repeat PRO12 blowout during next season’s World Cup.
League officials have still to confirm exactly how many rounds of PRO12 fixtures will take place next September and October while Ireland are in the UK trying to produce their best ever effort at the finals.
But O’Connor, whose side brought an end to their title-ruining run of just one win in seven by making it two in eight with Friday’s laboured home win against Treviso, insists that Leinster won’t be caught short again in manag- ing the bones of a squad poised to be decimated by World Cup call-ups.
Having secured 19 and 20-point harvests during the league’s four-game Six Nations window in 2014 and 2013, out-of-sync Leinster could only muster eight points this spring with second string selections.
That resulted in getting tailed off in the play-off race and eventually only stumbling to confirmed Champions Cup qualification with this weekend’s result — hardly a ringing endorsement for the province with the country’s best academy production line.
‘If you look at it in two distinct blocks, the PRO12 has been disappointing but Europe has proven to us we can compete against the very, very best,’ said O’Connor, looking back on a season where they somehow took treble European champions Toulon to semi-final extra-time.
‘PRO12, we have got a little bit of growth in us. Some of that will be in development, some of that will be in the way we approach games with the squad we have in those periods.
‘The frustration has been that we have lost tight games in the league and we have had three draws.
‘If I think back across the course of the PRO12 season there hasn’t been too many games we haven’t been in. There’s huge positives in being fifth on the table. You’d like to think that those lessons and the hurt in the changing room is going to be a really positive driver for us moving forward.’
Skipper Jamie Heaslip, agrees Leinster can only be better for what has happened so far in 2015. ‘This year has been a big learning curve for a lot of the younger guys in the squad.
‘There were games where we were a score or two ahead and let teams back into it to either draw or win, which could have put a very different spin on the season,’ said Heaslip.